An expert has advised bosses to consider allowing employees to work from home, claiming such arrangements can help to boost company productivity as well as staff loyalty and morale.

Telework Association development director Shirley Borrett explained that workers struggling with illness could benefit from being allowed to carry out their duties from their own home, rather than having to commute to the office.

“People who genuinely don’t feel up to travelling into work may later in the day still say, ‘I can do a couple of hours work from home,'” she said. “If you can work from home, you might just fire up your laptop.”

Ms Borrett added that the problems associated with periods of disruption to the transport network – such as December’s spell of harsh winter weather – could be circumvented by giving staff the option to work at home.

Her comments came after a survey from Dymo found that homeworkers are in many cases more efficient than their office-based colleagues, more than half of whom admitted to sending personal emails on company time.

Posted by Cameron Thomson